Man is arrested in connection with 1976 slaying of Westfield woman

Westfield policeA 53-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing a woman in 1976.

WESTFIELD — The Union County Prosecutor’s office made an arrest Monday in a 36-year-old Westfield homicide case.

Lena Triano, 57, was found brutally raped and murdered in her home on Ripley Place in Westfield on March 15, 1976, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said.

Triano, a quiet woman who lived alone and worked at a lawyer's office in Newark, had been bludgeoned, raped, stabbed and hogtied, Romanow said. Her back door was left unlocked and prosecutors believe the suspect entered through the back door and killed her sometime between March 14 and March 15, 1976.

A medical examiner listed her cause of death as asphyxiation due to strangling and multiple stab wounds that punctured her lungs, Romankow said.

Detectives Vinny Byron and Sgt. Harvey Barnwell of the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force investigated the cold case after Byron noticed a connection between Triano’s death and a cold case he had been investigating out of Springfield, which is still unsolved.

Byron and Barnwell interviewed neighbors and secured forensic evidence that showed Triano had been raped by the suspect. All the evidence, including Triano's clothing at the time of the murder, was well preserved at the Westfield Police Department and critical to breaking the case, Byron said.

The cold case is the oldest the prosecutor’s office has broken, Romankow said. That's not the only thing that makes it unique.

The suspect, a 51-year-old Union County resident, was 15 at the time of the murder. Under juvenile law in 1976, his name cannot be released to the public.

In 1978 the law changed so that juveniles 14 years and six months or older could be waived up and charged as adults, their names then becoming public record, Romankow said. But prior to 1978 no such waiver existed.

Romankow said his office has filed a motion to release the man’s name.

"I think in this case the public’s right to know is more important than protecting a 51-year-old accused murderer," Romankow said.

Under juvenile law in 1978 a suspect could be sentenced to “An undetermined term not to exceed life,” Romankow said. It’s unclear right now what the minimum sentence would be.

Today a juvenile who is convicted of knowingly or purposefully committing murder faces 20 years with a minimum of 1/3 of that time served.

“Some people are going to be very critical of the law,” Romankow said. “The law is what it is. But this does tell the public you have departments who will continue to search you out. These cases re never closed. It’s frustrating but ti gives solace to know we think we’ve determined who Lena Triano’s murderer is.”

The suspect is being held at the Union County Jail and is awaiting a release hearing to determine bail.